This category seems to be the safest in terms of who’s going to get nominated. This is what people have been predicting since January of this year. It’s still saddening that they couldn’t see how great Busy Philipps and Aubrey Plaza were. Also, both Heather Morris and Naya Rivera were great supporting actresses this season, though they were hurt by weak and inconsistent writing of the show.

Anyway, Julie Bowen gets a second consecutive nomination and once again, she aced her submission. In Strangers, she gets to do the laughing with the mouth but not with the eyes, and she focuses on more of the “aww” factor with her submission. This is a wise submission especially since the histrionic Claire is seen in Sofia Vergara’s episode. Jane Krakowski arguably submitted the funniest episode among all the nominees, but she’s barely in it. She gets upstaged by almost everyone though her storyline (alcoholism) is true fashion Emmy-bait. Current Emmy winner and this year’s host Jane Lynch tried to work on the dramatic side this year. Her work in Funeral shows the other side of Sue Sylvester, and though the episode looks so contrived for me, she has another hour long tape to show her “range” as an actress. Probably the new Megan Mulally in her category, Sofia Vergara once had all the buzz and frontrunner status on her side until we learned that she submitted Slow Down Your Neighbors. She was funny in her current tape as she tries to learn how to ride a bicycle, but she screwed her submission big time when she has an Emmy -winning submission like Unplugged. I wouldn’t count her out though because Jamie Pressly managed to pull off an upset in 2007 after submitting a mediocre tape. Never underestimate the power of Betty White as she knows how to submit a good tape. She might not get the most screentime in her episode, but even three minutes of Mary Tyler Moore and Betty White will be enough for voters to check off her name. She also gets the good one liners in her episode. This reminds me of what supporting actress Emmys are made of. Kristin Wiig isn’t probably a fan of giving award recognition, or she simply wants Jane Lynch to win again. She gets to be funny in her tape but she hsraes most of the scene with Jane Lynch. If anything, this helps Lynch more than it helps her. Voters will get to see the range of Lynch but not of Wiig. This is a curious case of one bad submission.

All in all, this might be anyone’s ball game. Lynch can easily repeat with two hour-long tapes. It’s easy to dismiss her if she only submitted Funeral. Bowen gets to show range as well and it’s never easy to dismiss both the Modern Family women this year. Vergara might not have submitted her best work but it still won’t make her out of contention, just out of frontrunner status. They might finally play catch p with Jane Krakowski this year (who knows?), or Bridesmaids can play a big factor in Kristin Wiig’s win ala Katherine Heigl. And of course, Betty White can never be eliminated. In times of confusing situations like this, it’s always safe to stick with the current champ so I’m predicting Jane Lynch for a repeat win. I’d LOVE to be wrong though.